Amazon issues three tips to avoid impersonation scams ahead of Black Friday
Black Friday is an increasingly popular time in the UK to snap up some bargains at discounted prices – but shoppers must be careful of scams.
Scammers will take advantage of the influx of shoppers to try and steal personal information such as log-in credentials and other identifying details.
Some big brands have already launched sales ahead of Black Friday itself, with prices slashed on a variety of items.
Amazon is warning customers that scammers could pose as them to try and trick shoppers into handing over precious data.
In an email sent out to customers the online shopping giant said: ‘Scammers posing as various organisations like Amazon may send you calls, texts, and emails with various tactics to try to deceive you to provide personal information or sign-in credentials.
‘Scammers may tell you there is a fraud investigation and you must “verify” your account or claim there is an unauthorised or fraudulent activity on your Amazon account.’
Three tips issued by Amazon to prevent Black Friday scams
Don’t hand out passwords or one-time pass codes over the phone
Amazon will never ask you to share your password, account sign-in One-Time Password (OTP), or verify sensitive personal information over the phone.
Visit the Message Centre on Amazon.co.uk or on the app to review authentic emails from Amazon.
Go directly to the Amazon website, and go to Your Account to make changes to your billing and account information.
Customer service is available 24/7.
Report potential scams
If you receive communication — a call, text, or email — that you think may not be from Amazon, please report it at amazon.co.uk/reportascam.
Set up two-step verification
2-step verification (2SV) gives your Amazon account an extra level of protection which means that even if a criminal knows your password, they still won’t be able to access it.
Consider setting up 2-step verification to your online accounts to help prevent unauthorised account access at amazon.co.uk/2SV.
It comes as customers who shop through an app have been warned that their personal data could be being tracked.
A whopping 74% of consumers use retailer apps to browse and shop, and the shopping app industry is growing massively – but this could come at the cost of your privacy, cybernews reports.
After installing an app you’ll be prompted to grant it various permissions, and while some of these are essential for the app to work, others could pose a risk to your private data.
cybernews analysed 71 of the world’s most popular shopping apps on the Google Play Store to find out which required the most potentially dangerous permissions.
These runtime permissions give apps additional access to restricted user data, or let it perform actions which could affect the system and user data.
The analysis found the Tata Neu shopping app demands 19 intrusive permissions to use, followed by Taobao which requests 18, and Lazada with 17.
All three can access the user’s location, camera, microphone, contacts, calendar, and stored files.
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